Fedora Release Planning Process

The motivation for the planning process is to raise the visibility of planned changes and make coordination and planning effort easier. Otherwise it is nearly impossible to follow all changes happening in a big project such as Fedora. It must be easy to submit the change proposal as early as possible, before the change is implemented and even in the very early state of the idea, to gather community feedback and review.

The list of accepted changes, or change set, is used by different teams across the project. For example, the change set may be used to prepare external facing materials like release notes and release announcements.

The planning process is an internal planning and tracking tool, and the final release is not required to reflect all proposed changes.

Change categories

Self contained changes

A self contained change is a change to isolated package(s), or a general changes with limited scope and impact on the rest of distribution/project. Examples include addition of a group of leaf packages, or a coordinated effort within a SIG with limited impact outside the SIG's functional area. Self contained changes could be used for early idea state proposals for wider and complex changes.

Public announcement of a new self contained change promotes cooperation on the change, and extends its visibility. Change owners may find help from the community or useful comments. These changes don't have to be thoroughly reviewed by FESCo. Based on the community review, the self contained change can be updated to the complex system wide change category, and the owner may be asked to provide more details and extend the change proposal page.

The process for self contained features

The owner submits the change proposal according to the change proposal submission policy.

The Wrangler checks the proposed change page for formal correctness.

Once the change proposal is correct, the Wrangler announces it on the Template:Flist mailing list.

WHO? advertises the change in the release notes. Other formal documentation process is optional.

The Wrangler adds the aggregated list of change proposals to the FESCo agenda no sooner than a week after the announcement on the mailing list.

In case of no complaints (possible breakage/conflicts, coordination needed) on the Template:Flist mailing list or from FESCo members, FESCo approves those change proposals without further investigation or scoping. Any team can share their views on Template:Flist and escalate a proposed change to FESCo to go through the regular complex system wide changes process. The change owner may be asked to provide more details or move the change to the "complex system wide changes" category. FESCo members are encouraged to ask questions on the mailing list instead of waiting for the meeting.

Complex system wide changes

Complex system wide changes involve system-wide defaults, critical path components, or other changes that are not eligible as self contained changes.

The process for complex system wide changes

The owner submits the change proposal according to the change proposal submission policy below.

The Wrangler checks the proposed change page for formal correctness.

Once the change proposal is correct, the Wrangler announces it on the Template:Flist list.

MISSING: Who adds to FESCo agenda, and when?

After a week on the mailing list, FESCo discusses the change in their meeting.

Optionally, FESCo assigns the change to one of the FESCo members or a trusted community member within the functional area (a change shepherd), who follows the detailed status of the change with FESCo and helps with processes within Fedora. For example, the change shepherd may communicate high-impact aspects of the change, or point out that a buildroot will be neccessary. The shepherd follows the status of the change until final release.

Fedora QA reviews announced changes on the Template:Flist list to commit to testing of the change, or adjust release criteria as necessary.

FESCo will re-review the status of complex changes one week before the Beta change deadline. At this time, FESCo typically decides whether to activate the contingency plan. Any change for which FESCo can't make this decision one week before beta must include a note on its Change wiki page and tracking bug.

HOWTOs

For developers

How to propose a new change?

In order to be considered an official change proposal accepted for the next Fedora release, the change proposal must be formally documented on a separate wiki page.

Once you're satisfied with the change proposal page, set the wiki page category to Category:ChangeReadyForWrangler, and set the appropriate change category -- Category:SelfContainedChange or Category:SystemWideChange. Both categories must be set!

Make sure to finish your change proposal by the change proposal submission deadline! If you do not meet this deadline, you must seek an exception from FESCo.

The Wrangler is responsible for the actual announcement of the change proposal, creating the FESCo ticket and tracking bug in Bugzilla. For status tracking, see the next section.

How does a change get accepted?

Self contained changes that pass community review (the announcement) are accepted by FESCo without further investigation in a batch, no sooner than one week after the announcement. Complex system wide changes must be accepted by FESCo individually in the weekly meeting. The scope and dependencies are thoroughly reviewed to determine influence on the other parts of Fedora. It's beneficial for the change proposal owner to be available in the FESCo ticket for the change proposal, and in the relevant FESCo meeting (announced in advance). The change proposal owner is notified when the change is accepted for inclusion in the planned release.

How do I show the status of a change I own?

The progress of development is shown in Bugzilla with defined bug states as explained in the change proposal template. Use this tracking bug to show blockers, using the Blocks/Depends on fields (for example package reviews), update the bug description with an actual status, and modify the bug status to reflect current state. You may be asked by the Wrangler or FESCo members to provide more detailed status (specifically for complex system wide changes).

Change is considered code complete when the bug state is moved to ON_QA and when there are no blocking bugs open.

Submitting new change proposals

New change proposals may be submitted using the guidelines described elsewhere and accepted by FESCo until the change proposals submission deadline.

Changes Freeze

New changes must be feature complete or close enough to completion by the change deadline so that a majority of its functionality can be tested during the Alpha and Beta releases.

If a change proposal page specifies a change will be enabled by default, it must be so at the change deadline.

Changes meeting the preceding bullets are considered testable.

Use the MODIFIED status in the tracker bug to show the change made the change deadline and is testable.

TestableThis means the change is substantially complete and can be tested when the change is not 100% completely implemented. This is an attempt to provide some flexibility without completely losing the understood meaning of a change being frozen. All new changes are tested during the Alpha and Beta releases.

Beta deadline/accepted changes 100% complete

At the Beta change deadline, new accepted changes must be code complete, meaning all the code required to enable to the new change is finished.

The level of code completeness is reflected as tracker bug state ON_QA. The change does not have to be fully tested by this deadline.

FAQs

Feel free to ask the Wrangler for help. Currently this position is held by Jaroslav Reznik.